I’ve been trying to find information regarding WBTB. I know how most of it works by now, but something that few seem to discuss is the time you spend awake after waking up. One source mentioned to stay awake for about 15-20 minutes. Another source said 60 minutes. Last night I tried to sleep after being awake for 20 minutes, but couldn’t fall asleep until another 40 minutes.
Does the time affect the dreams?
Is it more likely to have a LD if one is awake for a long time (more time focusing on dreams etc.),
or could it become counter-productive to stay awake for too long and reduce the chances of LD?
I’ve spent a lot of time reading in this forum and several guides to gain LD. I think, this is something you have to try out personally. Like you said, for some (guide-writers) 20 min before going back to sleep work best. For some, its an hour. I had my few LDs after staying awake 10 minutes! Experiment with WBTB and different times, find what works for you the best! And maybe post it here, too
Have fun,
Hillatoppa
That proves another reason to me why I should try WBTB more, which makes me even more exited, Yay!
I’m looking forward to find out what suits me the best!
It completely depends on the person. If you stay up X minutes and then take a long time to fall asleep after, try less time next time. On the other hand if you just lose consciousness and fall asleep right away, you can try staying up longer next time. It’s all about balance and finding the right stop that’s right in between.
What I’ve been doing is tracking my WBTB data and averaging it out. Based on others’ advice, I’ve usually done 45 minutes awake before returning to bed, but when I look at my LD successes, I see that I’m successful with anything between 30 minutes and 60 minutes. Less than 30 minutes, or more than an hour, and I don’t usually have an LD. (Again, this is me and my body.)
The sweet spot for me is around 40 minutes awake after five and a half hours of sleep.
The basic questions you have to ask yourself are: How deep a sleeper am I? Do I fall asleep quickly or slowly? How long does it take me to fall asleep? How tired do I feel when I wake up after four or five or six hours of sleep?
Personally, it takes me ~45 minutes to fall asleep. If I wake up after six hours of sleep, I have a big problem with falling asleep again.
If you’re a light sleeper, fall asleep quickly, and feel really tired after six hours of sleep, then you probably should wake up after seven hours and stay awake for at least 30 minutes.
All of my LD were DILD but they are really random. So I decided to try WBTB + MILD. So far I had two attempts at this.
First one - waked up after six hours and was awake for 45minutes (even took a shower), when I got to bed just ended lying there for an hour telling myself I am going to have lucid dream, I just couldn’t fall asleep.
Second one - waked up after 4 hours and decided to go back to sleep after 10 minutes, i was so sleepy it was hard to even form my mantra correctly, said it maybe once before I drifft off.
Personally WBTB worked for most of my first LDs but then i faded out of it,
i usually just stayed up long enough to slap the alarm off and think about LDIng before i get too awake to not be able to go to sleep, but it is mostly personal prefference.
